We didn't talk much that day.
The shrine's presence followed us, even once the path took us miles out. It wasn't just in my thoughts—it was in the way Luxio kept glancing behind us. In the way Cynthia didn't ask to stop. In how the silence felt heavier the longer it lasted.
Something had started.
We reached higher ground by midday, cutting across a ridge line flanked by crooked trees and veins of pale rock that shimmered under the sun. The trail narrowed into switchbacks. Steep ones. No wind, just heat and stillness.
Eventually, Cynthia said, "You felt it too, right?"
I didn't pretend not to know what she meant. "Yeah."
"That wasn't just a ruin."
"No."
"It was watching."
I nodded. "Didn't blink once."
She exhaled slow through her nose. "I thought you were going to touch it."
"I thought you were."
We walked another half hour in silence.
At a bend in the ridge, we stopped to rest. Just long enough for water. Neither of us sat. Too exposed. Too open. I kept my eyes on the forest slope below.
"Do you think it wanted something?" I asked.
Cynthia didn't answer right away. Then: "I think it remembers."
I looked at her. "Remembers what?"
She didn't look up. "Everything."
The wind finally picked up. Only a breeze, but it was the first sign that the air was starting to move again. The pressure around us had eased—but not gone.
Later, we reached a clearing of blackened stone and low ferns. A natural plateau, like something had burned through this patch of forest a long time ago and the land never forgot. Luxio sniffed the earth and didn't growl, but he didn't relax either.
I crouched to check the ground.
Ash.
Old. But not ancient.
"Another battle site?" I asked.
Cynthia ran a hand over one of the larger stones. It was pitted—like something had slashed it. "Or a testing ground."
We didn't linger.
That night, we made camp in a narrow draw between two rocky outcrops. It was defensible. Quiet. Cynthia didn't speak while setting her shelter. Neither did I.
When the fire was lit and Luxio curled beside me, I finally said, "I think I'll go back."
She didn't pretend to misunderstand. "To the shrine?"
"Eventually."
Cynthia nodded slowly. "You're going to try to bond with it."
"If it lets me."
She didn't speak for a while. Then: "It might hurt you."
I looked at the flames. "I've already been hurt by less meaningful things."
Silence again.
Then she said, "Don't bring something onto your team just because it's strong. That's how people die."
"I'm not chasing power. I'm chasing permanence."
"Same thing," she said. "If you do it wrong."
I let that sit.
Somewhere out there, that shrine still waited. And whatever haunted it—whatever blade-shaped silence lived in its shadow—hadn't forgotten me.
Maybe I hadn't forgotten it either.